1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an architecture for development and implementation of easy-to-use, low cost appliances, targeted at connecting average consumers to emerging on-line information services and other information sources.
2. Description of Related Art
Using computers, individuals are able to access a tremendous amount of information. With the emergence of information sources accessible through the Internet, such as web sites in the World Wide Web, and of local information sources, such as CD-ROMS, which are capable of storing entire libraries of information, more and more people are relying on their personal computers as a technique for gathering information. However, personal computers have been designed with general purpose architectures. Therefore, they have a wide variety of resources available in the architecture, which may not be necessary for a given application of the personal computer. The general purpose nature of personal computers keeps the cost of these systems high. Thus, if an individual uses a personal computer only for the purpose of gathering information from a CD-ROM, without taking advantage of a wide variety of other applications for which the personal computer is intended to work, then resources in the personal computer will be wasted.
Thus, it is desirable to provide special purpose platforms for data processing applications, such as retrieving information. However, the development of applications for special purpose platforms is often an intensive design effort. On the other hand, general purpose platforms support mature development tools to make application design efficient.
Thus, it is desirable to provide technology that enables the development and implementation of function-specific software applications that are matched to application optimized hardware platforms.